Wading through two weeks of digests, I tripped over the comments about line
dancing and the country music community's and another three about the
acceptance of what are politically correctly called "alternative
lifestyles."
On my first trip to Austin some years back, my old Toronto buddy
Brad Fordham (who plays bass with just about everybody in town) took me to
the Broken Spoke. "Don't mess with the girls in here," he said, "they've
all got boy friends with guns in the back of their pickup trucks."
Taking this advice to heart, Brad and I stood at the back bar,
watching the folks dancing (Alvin Crow was playing if I remember aright)
and minding our own business, when a buxom young woman, poured into very
tight jeans, and blessed with an ample figure, came over and asked us to
dance.
Panic came over me (I dance like a pregnant elephant in heat), but,
after signalling to the beefy men from whose table she had come, and
getting the nod that it was cool, we did indeed do our best, with the young
woman in tow, to glide/shuffle around the dance floor. Afterwards, we
joined the lady's party, were introduced to her mother and her brother and
her brother's buddy, both enormous good ol' boys with hats, cowboy boots,
pressed jeans, and Garth Brooks-y shirts.
Informed in conversation that Brad and I were Canadians, one of the
guys asked about skiing in Banff (not that I know, it's 1,500 miles away at
the other side of the country). "Are they cool with people like us?" one
of them asked. "Sure," I said, "we Canadians dig Texans. And we love
American money, and we always want more of it."
"No," said the lady's brother, "You don't understand. We're gay...."
Somehow, the statement - given the city, the setting, the music,
the ample young woman, and Brad's warning - rendered both of us speechless.
Cheers,
Richard
(Who can't wait to be in Austin again for SXSW)
NP Yo Yo Ma with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra
